One year ago today was our first real day at home with our newborn daughter.

We had spent the not-unusual two days and nights in the hospital after she was born, taken her home, and then shortly I had to return to the hospital for my wife to receive additional care. Being in the hospital for our baby’s first few nights at home without us was so hard at the time, but my wife and I have incredible mothers—and families in general—who stepped in to take care of her in our absence. A year ago tonight, when we came home, was the first night of the rest of our lives (all three of them).

There are plenty of things people will tell you about parenthood before you have a baby. Some of it is meaningful, some not-so-much, but almost all of it is well-meaning. The most common one I heard was that becoming a parent really does fundamentally alter your brain chemistry almost immediately, and that you can’t really understand what that means until you experience it. Fair enough, I thought on hearing it. I guessed I would find out when it happened.